Church During The Middle Ages Essay

The Church During the Middle Ages Christianity gave the people of the Middle Ages the motivation to accomplish many great things. Many people during this time lived miserable lives in poverty and had nothing to live for but the Church. However, regardless of a person’s social status, everyone was united under the hope to go to heaven. The Church during this time provided all of Europe’s education in their monasteries and universities. They also created and built unbelievably beautiful works of art in the forms of stained glass and architecture. Christianity became very popular with the early barbaric tribes. These tribes prayed for victory. The barbarians also wanted to go to heaven despite the deadly sins they committed in battle. When they settled and became more civilized, they built local places of worship, which served as churches. Most other people of this time lived on a manor. The manor system of living was a system based on loyalty in which a landowner gave land to knights and priests in exchange for protection or other services. Every manor typically had their own priest to serve all of the serfs in exchange for a tithe, which is a percentage of income tax to the church. The quality of the church on the manor depended on the available materials and the generosity of the King. Priests who lived …show more content…
There were two types of cathedrals; they were either monastic, led by monks who followed a more devoted life, or secular, led by clerks who desired political power. Cathedrals were built using a Gothic style, which included stained glass, large windows, and many small details. These projects were very time consuming and expensive. A monk at a cathedral church named Gervase stated in 1174 that it took a master mason a year to prepare the land for building. He also notes that it took another year to put up six pillars. The monk expressed the slow and tedious process of a master mason’s